Busy schedule taking its toll on the Bruins

As the games have piled up faster than Mass. Pike traffic at 5 p.m., it’s become easy for the Bruins to get their heads stuck in a snow bank when it comes to knowing the calendar. Slumped in his TD Garden stall after a 3-2 shootout win over the Maple Leafs two nights ago, Zdeno Chara wasn’t sure it was still Monday.

As the games have piled up faster than Mass. Pike traffic at 5 p.m., it’s become easy for the Bruins to get their heads stuck in a snow bank when it comes to knowing the calendar.

Slumped in his TD Garden stall after a 3-2 shootout win over the Maple Leafs two nights ago, Zdeno Chara wasn’t sure it was still Monday.

"I knew we were still pretty close to the weekend," Chara admitted, "but I had no idea."

It’s been rinse, lace up the skates and repeat for the Bruins for over four weeks now, since the post-lockout schedule turned from a friendly puppy to a snarling dog. They had just 14 games in the season’s opening 36 days, but from Feb. 24 through Monday, a span of 30 days, the Bruins played 17 games with never more than a day between games.

Overall, they’ve survived in the standings with an 11-5-1 record in that span. But the scars of a laborious schedule are showing, some literally. They’ve lost three key cogs to injury (center Chris Kelly, and defensemen Johnny Boychuk and Adam McQuaid), have blown four third-period leads this month alone, and last week dropped three of four on a road trip.

On Monday, coach Claude Julien called off the typical morning skate.

"Got to get rest somewhere," he explained.

Then, after the Bruins rallied from a 2-0 deficit to escape with two points in the shootout, Julien said the Bruins won despite not having their legs.

"To me it was a gutsy effort. Not a pretty effort, but a gutsy one," Julien said. "Until they scored their second goal, we really weren’t that good and I don’t think the will and desire is not there, more than it’s, I think, we’re a little heavy right now in our play. We’ve lost some speed and everything else that comes with it. It’s a gutsy effort, anyways, from our part."

Julien explained the "heavy" game is a result of weary bodies.

"You can tell, nothing is as quick as it has been," he said. "We’re trying to figure out whether the fatigue factor has played into that. I think we are tired, so we’re going to have to look into that a little bit more. This is certainly a team that when you see them in the room and you see them out on the ice, it’s not from lack of will, more than they seemed to be a little tired right now.

"That’s our assessment of our team and that’s how we feel our team is right now — a little bit on the tired side."

With that in mind, Julien scrubbed Tuesday’s scheduled practice. The Bruins will need their full energy for a first-place showdown with the rival Canadiens on Wednesday. The Bruins’ win Monday brought the teams even atop the Northeast Division at 45 points in 31 games entering Montreal’s visit to Pittsburgh on Tuesday.

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For once this month, the Bruins will be the more rested team.

"There’s different ways of skinning a cat I guess, and some of it would be (canceling morning skate), and some of it would be getting more days off, and getting a good morning skate," Julien said of finding ways to rest. "I think we have to look at those different options at different times."

After days off Thursday and Friday, the hellacious schedule resumes with 16 games in 29 days to end the season with no more than a day off between games. It’ll quickly be back to forgetting what day of the week it is.

"We’ve talked about it. It’s one of those things you’ve got to battle through it, and I thought we did that tonight," Patrice Bergeron said Monday night. "You don’t want (getting tired) to happen, but it’s going to happen in the season, and it’s about finding a way to get out of it, and I think we’ve still got to be better, but it’s a step forward."

Dan Cagen can be reached at 508-626-3848 or dcagen@wickedlocal.com. Follow him on Twitter @DanCagen.